About GameSetWatch

GameSetWatch.com is the alt.video game weblog and sister site of Gamasutra.com. It is dedicated to collecting curious links and media for offbeat and oft-ignored games from consoles old and new, as well as from the digital download, iOS, and indie spaces.

Archive For August, 2008

Aha, the ever-present GameSetLink-age bus is trundling up to the WWW stop again, headed by another of those well-researched MSNBC.com articles that don't often get noticed by game sites - this time, on social network gaming.

Also wandering around in here, the (pictured) super-cute Shooting Historica Vol.2 classic shmup figurines, as well as a review of Billy Mitchell's family restaurant, a disturbing Rooster Teeth cartoon, Cliffski on talking to pirates (in case you hadn't seen), and plenty more.

Positech: 'Talking To Pirates'
Kudos/Democracy creator Cliffski: 'A few days ago I posted a simple question on my blog. "Why do people pirate my games?".'

NDS Homebrew Bounty! - GBAtemp.net
'We at GBAtemp are proud to announce the creation of a Monthly Homebrew Bounty, a bounty (fund-raising using donations from organizations and people) that will reward, each month, the author of the best homebrew. For now, this only goes for Nintendo DS homebrew but we might extend it to other platforms later.'

Rooster Teeth · 'Double D Vision'
An Aberrant Gamer-friendly cartoon: 'I don't know if you've played Soul Calibur IV yet... but let's just say that there are assets in the game that are a little...ridiculous.'

There's been a lot going on over the past couple weeks in magazine-land (not least of which being the destruction of my laptop, which is why this column is a little late), but I'd like to start instead by officially inaugurating the UK's Retro Gamer into the regular rotation of what I cover in Mag Watch. It's only fair, after all, given that I cover the extremely rough Video Game Collector and RG beats it in every single aspect -- content, features, industry access, art design, and covers -- except for price.

I think it finally dawned on me that I ought to be discussing RG more often with this issue (the 53rd one, not the 50th one above -- sorry, blame the laptop). This isn't just because of the cover (which I adore) or the massive Konami retrospective or the beautifully-designed history of Boulder Dash.

Mainly it was the interview with Mark Cerny where he discusses the development of Marble Madness, his maiden effort. Back when I worked for GamePro I tried several times to get him to talk about this game, one of my all-time favorite "game-as-art" pieces, but he always dodged the question 'cos he was too busy plugging Jak II or whatever he was busy consulting on at the time. But Retro Gamer did it! Cerny didn't talk to "the world's #1 multiplatform gaming magazine" about it, but some piddly 20,000-circ pub in Britain? Sure!

But you can totally see why when you read the thing. If this were Video Game Collector, then all you'd get is 4 straight pages of Q&A text, denser than the 1897 Sears catalog, with maybe one or two blurry screenshots that are heavily JPG-artifacted for no apparent reason. Not here. You get a beautiful art design modeled after the game's distinctive isometric look, lots of smart-looking screenshots, and even a step-by-step through every level complete with Cerny's commentary on each one.

It's not just a great piece -- it's a piece, and a magazine overall, that's truly worthy and respectful of the subject matter it's talking about. RG's approach takes a subject that often bores younger gamers and makes it engaging and fascinating. There are things I don't like about it, including the occasional factual miss and a still-prevalent UK bias (the cover piece opines that Imagine Software's 80s computer conversions of Konami's arcade games were better than Konami's own NES efforts, which makes me wonder exactly which NES games they could possibly have been playing).

But -- and I've said this before -- this mag is so good, and so worth the money, that there's no point in any US publisher launching a retrogaming magazine now because there's no way it could outclass this one. Between this and Edge and PC Zone, it's amazing to me that the UK gets the best in game mags but the worst (oftentimes) in support from game publishers.

[Every week, Gamasutra sister weblog GamerBytes' editor Ryan Langley will be summing up the top news tidbits from the past 7 days, including brand new game announcements and scoops through the world of Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare.]

The real news this week is that the "secret best game ever" Death Tank is making its way from the Sega Saturn to the Xbox Live Arcade. While some may simply brush it off as "nothing but a clone of Scorched Earth", it is much more than that.

Unlike Scorched Earth or Worms, Death Tank was entirely real-time. Grab 7 of your mates, a stack of controllers and a Sega Saturn Multitap and you'll have bullets, nukes, rolling mines and air strikes flying over your head. It was the Geometry Wars of its time, and is still a blast to play with a bunch of friends. Death Tank! Ready for action? I certainly am.

Xbox Live Arcade

Galaga Legions Is Your XBLA Game This Week
This week gives us the next iteration of "Championship Edition" style games from Namco - first Pac Man CE, and now Galaga Legions. It looks like it's going to be just as addictive as the former title - can't wait.

Sierra Online Still Publishing 'Zombie Wranglers'
While everything at Sierra appears to be crumbling under the weight of Activision Blizzard, it appears that they will still be releasing some new titles - 'Zombie Wranglers' is being released by Sierra on XBLA.

What You Should Be Looking Forward To In The XNA Game Community
Destructoid have gotten their hands on the Microsoft XNA developer kit and had a look around what is currently available for play in the Xbox XNA Community games, and have made a list of 5 titles you should definitely be interested in being a part of.

New Trailer Of Multiwinia From Darwinia+
While not exactly the Xbox Live Arcade version of Darwinia+, Introversion have released a trailer for Multiwinia, the multiplayer version of Darwinia being released onto PCs, and supposedly one half of the XBLA title.

'Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars' Announced For PSN
Psyonix Studios today announced Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, an arena-based online vehicle sports game for PlayStation Network. Psyonix have actually got quite a history - they've been contractors for some of the last few games by Epic Games - including Gears of War, UT 2004 and Unreal Tournament III.

[When our own Chris Remo went to the EA Partners event late last week, we were figuring maybe to be talking to Tim Schafer. But no - Epic/People Can Fly and, even more unexpectedly, Grasshopper were the two announcements. Since GSW is pretty Suda-friendly, here's the chat we had with him and producer/Resident Evil supremo Shinji Mikami.]

When Electronic Arts announced two new developers signing to the EA Partners program for independent studios, the more surprising one by far was Grasshopper Manufacture, the Japanese team behind Killer7 and No More Heroes.

Details about the upcoming game -- in development for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Wii -- were sparse. Studio founder Goichi Suda, often known as Suda51, described it only as a "mysterious, very unique, horror-packed action game."

More interestingly still, it is produced by Shinji Mikami, the acclaimed director of games such as Resident Evil, Resident Evil 4, and God Hand; he also produced Suda's own Killer7 (pictured) and is working on a title with Sega-signed Japanese development studio PlatinumGames.

The deal was brokered by Tetsuya Mizuguchi's studio Q Entertainment (Lumines, Meteos), and represents Electronic Arts' first major high-profile partnership with a third-party Japanese developer since its venture with Square that ended in 2003.

Following the announcement, we sat down with Suda and Mikami to discuss the deal, as well as Suda's reflections on game design and producers.

Some more GameSetLinks to continue the week, then, and it's headed by an inspiring, poignant piece by competition fighting game veteran John Choi about his family and victory at a recent Las Vegas meetup.

Also hanging out in here - Kokoromi's new indie game challenge in THREE DEE, the 'Reformat The Planet' chiptune documentary streamable for a limited time only, inside Guitar Hero research, and lots more neatness besides.

[This is an interesting, if odd one - Mathew Kumar talked to Gene Hoffman, CEO of billing and fraud management company Vindicia, about the issues MMO publishers such as Blizzard (which we believe Vindicia represented, but they didn't explicitly confirm) face - and what they can do to avoid fraud, which can be massive.]

As MMOGs increase in size and become more like real economies, fraud, either in-world theft or simple credit card chargebacks, become a larger issue.

In fact, chargebacks are a relatively little-known but fascinating part of the MMO world. As recently explained, fraudulent chargeback "...occurs when a credit card transaction is refuted by the cardholder.", and can occur both with stolen credit cards and even when "...the actual cardholder makes the transaction and then decides to refute the transaction after the fact."

For major MMO firms, these fees can stretch into millions of dollars every month, making managing them key. Gamasutra talks to Gene Hoffman, CEO of billing and fraud management company Vindicia about the issues MMOG publishers such as Blizzard face, and what they can do to avoid fraud.

['Quiz Me Quik' is a weekly GameSetWatch column by journalist Alistair Wallis, in which he picks offbeat subjects in the game business and interviews them about their business, their perspective, and their unique view of life. This time - some opinions and an interview with controversial indie game creator Luc Bernard.]

I pretty freely admit that I laughed quite loudly when I first saw Pitchfork's review of the second album from immensely average Australian rock band Jet. You know, the one where instead of text, they just had that YouTube video of a monkey drinking its own urine?

So, I'm not sure how I can really be about to say that I find the following quote, from Destructoid's review of indie platformer Eternity's Child, to be utterly repugnant. Possibly it's an issue I have with Jet, having had the displeasure of seeing them play “before they were big”. But here we go anyway:

“Whatever you do, don't buy this game. In fact, don't even say its name, for that might give its already unholy form power.”

That's repugnant. Utterly abhorrent. I've done my fair share of criticism, for both games and music, and that's a level I've never stooped to. That's the point where it jumps from taking your responsibilities as a writer in the public sphere seriously, to attention-seeking. 'Look at how funny I am!' It's pretty much everything I find repellent about the world of video game blogging in one sentence. There's a time and place for humour writing. Not every single post needs to contain a joke. Is the audience's attention span really that infinitesimal?

To be fair, the rest of the review isn't actually badly done, per se. It raises fair points in terms of the issues the writer has with the game, but jeez. That conclusion? Just...don't. Show some respect – both for the game, and for yourself, as a writer.

Here's the problem with it – it's trivializing the work of the game's creator, Luc Bernard, and turning him into a joke in the eyes of the readers. And the readers, for the most part, want to be the bloggers. They want to be as Oscar-Wilde-witty and fabulously scathing as the people whose work they read each and every day. That's why comments exist. That's where they try and prove that they can compete.

And, here lies the level of responsibility, which seems to be completely misunderstood. Anyone can laugh, and say that they're not responsible for the comments of the community, but that's not true. You can't play the 'do as I say, not as I do' game. Especially not on the Internet, where the much reposted Penny Arcade rule of anonymity stands so true. To wit:

“Luc,” read one comment, “Go fuck yourself.”

“GO FUCK YOURSELF LUC!!” Read another. “YEAHHHH!!!”

So: the thing. Eternity's Child might not be a good game. I wouldn't know – I haven't actually played it, yet. But I respect its creator, Luc Bernard.

Respect's a good word, I think. It means, according to the first online definition I managed to wrangle up, “To recognize the worth, quality, importance, or magnitude of”.

I think Bernard's reaction to this whole thing in the aforementioned comments section could have been handled with a higher degree of professionalism. In fact, I think even taking part was a bad move.

I think placing the blame on his co-developer, Joseph, was unnecessary. I think his recent – somewhat retracted – comments in regards to quitting video games smack of over-reaction.

But, he's 22. I did some pretty stupid things, and said some pretty stupid stuff at that age. Hell, I tried to steal a pine tree once. And at least he attempted it - putting the game out, I mean, not stealing a pine tree, because that only leads to legal threats and multi-hundred dollar bills. He put something out there commercially - putting a value on his work - and you have to respect that.

'Course, I'm not saying that you have to create something of your own to be able to engage in criticism, because that's just silly. But at least show a little respect, please - at least respect the effort that went into his work.

The following is a discussion with Bernard about his work, and his behavior.

[The Gentleman Nerd is a not entirely weekly column written by Jason McMaster and is dedicated to the more discerning tastes of the refined dork. Due to Jason's extreme nature, most of his columns will be subtitled 'Why I Love...' or 'Why I Hate...' - in case you were wondering.]

Well, I made it back, gentle friends. I swam through the river of man and came out the other side with schwag and a few business cards. Thanks to my high level of alcohol tolerance, I managed to almost pull off a straight-faced interview with David Gaider from Bioware as well as demo a few new board games.

Now it be time to regale ye with tales from the nerdy sea. I sat in on a 20 minute Dragon Age demo, and as I mentioned earlier, interviewed David Gaider, the lead writer for this game and long-time BioWare contributor. If you're curious, he's the guy who wrote HK-47 in Knights of the Old Republic. That means he's awesome.

Anyway, Dragon Age looks pretty interesting so far. Fans of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale will not be disappointed when this game drops early next year. Being developed exclusively (well, as of this writing) for the PC means that many of my hardcore PC friends will be completely psyched.

BioWare is going back to the 4 man party system and has developed this story and world from scratch, so we won't be seeing any old D&D or Star Wars friends this time around. The content and design appear to be M rated, so we won't be having to worry about this story having a happy-go-lucky feel to it. Overall, I'm pretty anxious to get my shaky hands on it.

Mythic, as was the case last year, was busy showing off Warhammer Online and doing so very successfully. They were having PvP demonstrations and had a few stations set up to allow the public to beat each other senseless. The ever-charming Jeremy Dale was there, showing off his leet animating skillz by, uh, standing around. Eve Online was there, as always.

Turbine games were also present at the show. They were handing out trial subscriptions to Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online. The booth was packed all day, so someone had to be doing something right.

The Atari booth was basically the same way. They were demoing The Witcher and running trailers for Sacred 2. There were a few other PC gaming booths, but most of them didn't really draw my attention. The Fable 2 booth was handing out free pub games vouchers. There were running demos of the Champions game, which looks cool if you're into super-heroes.

I spent a good amount of time in the board game area as well. I'd hate to short change those events, so I'll save that for my next installment. I even saw Bud Bundy. I just hope he didn't see me.

[Jason McMaster is a freelance writer who has written for Gamasutra, GameSpy and several other publications. He’s currently working on a few small projects and updating his blog, Lamethrower, as often as he can.]

Woo, some final GameSetLinks for the weekend, and in here is the excellent return of 'A Vampyre's Story' - which has been hanging around in development for at least a couple of years now, and it's great to see will finally get a release later this year.

Also there - Richard Jacques stars in the Summer Of Sonic, blimey, as well as crazy Cactus unfinished game videos, the RPS' Japanese correspondent on PC gaming out there, and an incredi-explicit indie title, plus much more.

Oh, and before we go into the links, wanted to mention that Nvidia's Temis Nunez pinged me to remind about NVScene 08, and as a oldskool demo-scene guy (1988-1996 in Jetset, Axis, Valhalla, Kosmic on Amiga and PC, among others), I wanted to make sure all Bay Area geeks knew about it. As the site/Temis explains (and yes, this is in some ways promotional for Nvidia, but much more interesting than that):

"Arranged in strong cooperation with Scene.org and the Breakpoint demo party, NVScene (demo reel)... is held in San Jose, California from the 25th to the 27th of August. In addition to an... international demo competition in both Demo (Presented by HP) and 4K Intro (Presented by EA's Spore) categories on our huge screen and sound system, there will be a very strong lineup of seminar speakers, featuring Navis/ASD, Bonzaj/Plastic, Chaos/Farbrausch, IQ/RGBA, Mentor/TBC, Preacher/Traction and Pixtur/Still."

And a Spore talk with Chris Hecker and Dan Moskowitz of Maxis, actually, all as part of the bigger Nvision event which has game-related technical talks, a LAN party, etc. Anyhow, I'm planning to go for at least a while, so expect some GSW reports on it. On to the links:

SturmMod Mod for Far Cry Performance image - Mod DB
Far Cry mod which "...provides an environment in which the places and actions described by William Shakespeare in his play "The Tempest" can be visited, explored, experienced and reflected by the player." Nice!

[Aha, another Austin GDC-related event organized by my colleague and GCG supremo Jill Duffy, this time for folks wanting to get into the biz, with the excellent Harvey Smith (what _is_ he working out at Arkane?) giving the keynote.]

The organizers of the Game Career Seminar at Austin GDC have announced Arkane Studios' Harvey Smith as the keynote for this year's educational event, talking about the 'Luckiest People Alive', with other GCS speakers from Vicarious Visions, Nexon, Ghostfire, and more.

The event, organized by Think Services (also parent of Gamasutra) is held on September 17th, and takes place at the Austin Convention Center during Austin GDC.

Smith, currently working at Arkane Studios' relatively new Austin office, will provide the keynote address, entitled "Luckiest People Alive." Smith's previous works have included the critically-acclaimed Deus Ex for Ion Storm, where he served as the lead designer of the 2000 BAFTA award-winning game.

In his talk, Smith will discuss what he sees as an imminent explosion of change, creativity, and possibility within the world of interactive entertainment.

The Game Career Seminar presents an opportunity for students, graduates and aspiring game developers to meet and network with human resources personnel from various game developers and learn how to enter the thriving game development world.

Smith was recognized as the winner of the Game Design Challenge at GDC 2006 with his "Peace Bomb" game concept aimed at winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Working on game development professionally since 1993, Smith has served as studio creative director at Midway Games' Austin office, as lead designer of Fireteam at Multitude, and Origin Systems.